


The Only Door That Matters

by psocoptera



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Iris POV, mention of Barry/Linda, mention of Iris/Eddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/pseuds/psocoptera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris can see how it's going to go: once she crosses that line with Barry, there'll be no going back.  She tastes his lips and there'll be a ring on her finger.</p>
<p>(Playing around with Iris characterization as of episode 1x13.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Door That Matters

**Author's Note:**

> This... has no plot. Just wanted to imagine a version of what might be going on in Iris's head before that gets completely jossed.

Barry bites into the pepper, and all Iris can think is that it doesn't fit the story.

She's always known. Well, no, not always. She's always _felt_ it, but she figured it out when she was seventeen, when the way she felt like she could listen to him talk all night forever about anything and the way she couldn't stop staring at his hands chopping vegetables in the kitchen and the way she caught him looking at her, sometimes, the way her earbud fell out as she danced down the hall and she twisted for it, awkward with the laundry basket on her hip, and saw Barry in the doorway of his room and he looked away first: the way it all came together into one giddy night, talking to herself in the mirror, getting as far as her hand on her doorknob before she flopped back onto her bed, wrapping herself up in her blankets like a cocoon and just breathing, breathing with the weight of it.

If she had been younger, she thinks, _forever_ would have sounded like a fairy tale and she would have thrilled to play the princess, the Meg to his Cal, ready to name all the stars with him. But at seventeen, she had college in sight, and as much as she wanted anything (wanted Barry) she wanted to plunge through that open door into a thousand open doors, wanted to meet people who'd never known her, kiss boys at parties, major in undeclared, spill ink and see what kind of pattern it made.

And Iris can see how it's going to go: once she crosses that line with Barry, there'll be no going back. She tastes his lips and there'll be a ring on her finger. And that's not... bad, but it is terrifying, that the whole unfathomable tree of their future is curled tight and green in her hands. Barry is patient and kind; he would stand to one side, if she asked, to let her run headlong at college. But she doesn't want to do it with him _waiting_ for her, and she knows, just by being Barry, he'll change all her choices, and boys at parties will seem tedious and ridiculous when she could be with him instead.

(Some nights they do anyways, and she'll catch herself biting her lip at her email, trying out scripts for a confession. But Iris wants Barry to get to fly too, he doesn't need her calling him back to her just because she misses him. For the most part, the future turns out to be easy to carry, all bundled up and unopened the way she's left it, as nice to have with her as a favorite book and just as little impediment to walking boldly into the rest of her life.)

The coma is a nightmare. She can still hardly think about it - the way it felt like something was tearing inside of her when she heard, the way Barry's hands were limp and still in the hospital bed. The way she had wrapped herself up in her blankets and made herself admit that she had been lying to herself all these years, that it was never meant to be, that it was ridiculous and stupid and selfish and wasteful to think the future was something you could just pack away and save for later. That it had never been real, that Barry would have said something long ago, or she would have; that love was not a sturdy plant you could forget to water. That there were no guarantees, that maybe no one would ever love her, that she would have to figure out her future the real way that everybody else did, step by step into uncertainty.

Eddie is sweet and unmistakably real, and when Barry wakes up, it feels - it feels like a miracle, first, but also like a sign, like she's doing the right thing, trying to go on with her life. Seventeen is a long time ago, now, with Eddie holding her and making her laugh, and she reminds the voice in her that had said "if Barry wakes up" that grief-bargaining is different than promises.

The Flash: if he's a sign for Barry to believe in the impossible, he is also, for Iris, a secret reminder of how much is possible, of how many different unimaginable futures she might have. It's terrifying in a new way to feel how easy it would be to walk away from Eddie into the arms of a unknown stranger, to feel like ink that could spill any which way, to follow a friend's link to a man in eyeliner singing about how if he didn't have his wife then statistically he'd probably be happy with someone else, and think that it's true that Eddie could easily have been someone else, a classmate, a regular at Jitters, a mystery in red. Eddie's key locks the doors to those possibilities, and she almost doesn't accept it, but if she waits until she feels ready, she might never be. And she can't let Eddie think she's waiting for Barry, even if she also can't begin to explain that that's a door that closed a long time ago.

Except then Barry tells her he loves her. He breaks it to her like it's news, like his heart is freshly broken, like the green seed of the thing between them isn't long since petrified. And Iris can't breathe, can't move: she can feel the future alive in the palms of her hands, electric on her neck. If she moves, she'll be in his arms. If she speaks, she'll say his name. And she can't, not like this, not with Eddie standing hopefully in his doorway, inviting her into a future that - god, that Iris has chosen? That she has to make the best of now? How can she, when Barry _never knew_ , when he's thought he was alone in it this whole time, when he's never been able even just for a moment to rummage through the boxes and unwrap the paper and know that their future was safe and waiting if they ever decided it was time. Which - Iris is crying, but can't move to blot her eyes - hadn't been false comfort; is so close now, she's aware of it like she can feel every inch of air between their bodies, but she can't move. Barry wrings his beautiful hands and his voice breaks and it hasn't been easy for him to carry, not at all. She lets him leave and goes upstairs and wraps herself in her blankets, shaking. Who is she, that no matter what she does now, she'll do damage?

Someday her daughter is going to ask her how she got married, and it can't be any part of that story that Iris was unfaithful. She has to make a real try of it with Eddie. But then if (when) that doesn't work out, if it (when it) comes to a natural close... she wishes she could tell Barry that _not now_ isn't the same as _not ever_ , give him that much to hold onto. But the slope hasn't gotten any less slippery. If she says anything true, "I always thought someday" or "when you didn't wake up", they're going to end up on the fucking _floor_ together. Barry helps, tells her everything can go back to normal, faster than she thinks. (As if he'd ever had to tell her how fast their future could happen, when it comes to the two of them.) She gives him a fist bump because a closed hand doesn't risk never letting go.

So here they are, Barry back at the house, where it's all too easy to picture his hand on the banister and his feet hanging off the end of the couch, and Iris at Eddie's with her boxes all half-unpacked, knowing the most important thing isn't in any of them. And she really does, she really does want Barry to find someone amazing. One last time with someone else, one last season to see who they are when they're not together, before they finally turn that corner.

But what's up with that pepper? That's too much, too intense. That's not a kiss at a party, that's _the start of a different story_ , that's wedding toast material. Someone else's daughter asking for the story of a different marriage. Alone, she slides her finger into her mother's ring. Enough prequel. Enough dormancy. Bloom. Bloom. Bloom.


End file.
